A blog of liberal, progressive ideas in politics, government, and social issues.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Did anyone notice? No Trump here on ShrinkRap?

Has anyone noticed the new "no Trump" policy here on ShrinkRap? It has been 26 days since I last wrote about Donald Trump (June 20th). His name has been mentioned in passing twice since then, once on June 25th in results of a poll and again on June 27th just incidental to a bigger issue.This has been a conscious decision. I have been distressed since last fall about the amount of free publicity that Trump gets. One ad-savvy group estimated that he has gotten over $2 billion dollars worth of free TV time during the primaries. So I decided to stop contributing, even in my small way, to that.It's not been as hard as I anticipated, resisting the urge to blurt out my disdain for the latest Trump outrage. But it has also felt liberating. So let's just accept that Donald Trump is a world-class narcissist, a smart con man, a brilliant media manipulator, an unprincipled opportunist, and -- nevertheless -- the Republican nominee for president of the United States.

Here's what I intend from here on. I will continue to try to keep my own outrage in check and simply comment on what I think is relevant news analysis, background evidence, and opinion. That will necessarily include some talk about Trump, but I'll keep it mostly in the realm of policies and actions, rather than the outrageous things he says. Please understand that this does not indicate any lessening of my gut-wrenching horror at the prospect of this disaster being our president.